Roland D-50 / D-550

The D-50 is an all-time favorite digital synth that's still just as
popular today as when it first came out in '87. Once Roland's hottest
digital synth, it competed against the Yamaha DX7, and was much easier to use.
By joining 8-bit PCM samples with "LAS" synth-generated sounds, the D-50
is capable of unique and complex sounds. The PCM samples contained the
attack transients, while the rest of the sound came from the Linear
Arithmatic Synth (LAS) section which sounds very analog, with
subtractive-style synthesis and low-pass-resonant filters. Built-in
chorus and (for the first time) digital reverb are also included for
giving your sounds space and life! It also has a joystick controller for
real-time timbre manipulation. The D-50 was great for new and
non-acoustic, percussive, ethereal and beautiful pads & sounds.

Roland D-550 Rack Version

Both the D-50 and D-550 benefit from the PG-1000 external controller which gives you
very plain and simple slider/fader type control of all adjustable
parameters of the synth. The D-50 includes MIDI on all 16 channels but
because it is monotimbral you can only use one channel at a time. There
is an upgrade which will give the D-50 and its rackmount version a full
16 channels of simultaneous MIDI multitimbral data communication. This
popular synth has been widely used in all forms of music. Eric
Clapton, Enya, 808 State, Jean Michel Jarre, Vince Clarke, Apollo 440,
Eat Static, LTJ Bukem, Fluke, Information Society, Lab-4, Gary Numan, Rick Wakeman,
Kitaro, Rush, Vangelis, Richard Barbieri, Boston and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran are just a few
of the many satisfied users.

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